


Being in Love is The Same Thing as Being Alone

by pollutedstar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Again, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Biblical Angels, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bittersweet Ending, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Lesbian Charlie Bradbury, Pre-Slash, Referenced Bobby/Rufus, Vomiting, but also..., i am literally fantasizing about killing john fucking winchester, wait to be clear the pre-slash is deancas not a lesbian and a man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 02:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollutedstar/pseuds/pollutedstar
Summary: He smiles at her, and he doesn’t mean it. Behind every tooth is a plea for help that no one has ever heard, locked tight and written in dead languages not even Cas speaks. But Charlie’s got a computer in her head and some kind of impossible irreplicable spark that would let her see every single person in the world if she chose to, and for some reason she chooses to see Dean.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84





	Being in Love is The Same Thing as Being Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I love you all!! 🥺  
> Dean's Going Through It in this one but I hope the ending leads itself to a better future. The quote is from “Ketchum, ID” by boygenius.

It’s not that he’s an alcoholic. It’s just that he can’t sleep some nights without blacking out. The kind of life he leads, he figures he’s earned his four hours, no matter how he gets them. And sometimes it’s not about sleep, it’s about the fact that his bones feel raw. He’s got no other way to describe it. Everything in him aches, and then he thinks about his father, and then he goes almost blind with this _feeling._ Blind and raw and… well, he just needs to numb it. And any open wound a hunter’s got is bound to be doused in whiskey, so he figures this is no different.

The problem is, tonight he doesn’t black out. He’s still awake, and he’s not numb because the alcohol had the wrong effect and is making him buzz. His hands are clenched at his sides and maybe digging in a little too sharp. Whatever. He knows how to cover bruises.

One time Sam had found a bottle of foundation in his duffel bag and congratulated him on overcoming his “toxic masculinity” and being more “comfortable with himself” and all that other shit he learned at college and Dean didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s carried stuff like that around since they were kids. Counselors were nosy shits in the 90s.

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that now. Doesn’t know why he’s replaying Sam’s voice telling him to be okay with himself. Definitely doesn’t know why he’s standing outside of Charlie’s room in the Bunker, knocking with as much effort as he puts into staying alive.

She pulls open her door and smiles, and he doesn’t remember anyone ever smiling at him like that.

“Dean! Finally ready to start our _Harry Potter_ marathon?”

He can’t string the words together to tell her yes, fuck yeah, all I want is to watch _Harry Potter_ with you and listen to you talk about the women you’re into right now, and it’s probably weird how much I like to hear about your dating life but I’m kind of living vicariously through you. And he can’t string the words together to tell her no, Charlie, I actually desperately want to tell you something but I can’t even form it in my head, it’s just something in me that’s buried under my skin and I want someone to dig it out and maybe you have a shovel.

“Dean?” she asks, and her voice doesn’t drop like everyone else’s does when he’s drunk and sad and shows it.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says without meaning to, and he vomits a little in his mouth before swallowing it back down.

She nods like he makes any sense. “Right now or… in general?”

Shit, that’s something he can’t answer. He doesn’t know the answer. If he tried to answer, he knows he’ll end up sobbing in a way he hasn’t since the first night he sat in the back of the Impala without his mother riding up front.

“I wish you’d met Bobby,” he says instead, stumbling a little as he tries to balance himself. She ushers him into her room, not touching him like she knows what times his body allows outsiders and right now is not one of them.

He stays standing, awkward and unstable in the middle of her room. He wonders if he’s swaying or the ground is.

“I kinda met him,” she offers. “Back when we were running from Dick Roman.”

He waves her off. “You met his ghost. That wasn’t Bobby. Bobby was alive. And he’d have loved you. I always thought, you know, he and Rufus were a little… you know. You know.”

“Rufus?”

“His best friend. Or something. None of my business. None of nobody’s business, Bobby never said shit. Probably thought I’d tell my dad. Or be my dad. I don’t fucking know.”

He smiles at her, and he doesn’t mean it. Behind every tooth is a plea for help that no one has ever heard, locked tight and written in dead languages not even Cas speaks. But Charlie’s got a computer in her head and some kind of impossible irreplicable spark that would let her see every single person in the world if she chose to, and for some reason she chooses to see Dean.

“Dean, what was your dad like? The one you knew, not the one you talk about in front of Sam.”

He falls to his fucking knees, the sound coming out of him free for the first time since he was four-years-old. No one’s ever gotten it, put it into words that simple. No one. Bobby understood silence and fear. Charlie, he thinks, understands screaming.

“He hated me. Jesus, Charlie, sometimes I hear people say they hate each other and I don’t think they know what the word means. You know how fucked up my body was before Hell? I was a good goddamn hunter, I don’t know why everyone believed I got that hurt fighting monsters.”

He looks up at her like he trusts her, like he’s bleeding and ready to spill all his secrets, and she drops down to his level. Sits next to him and lets her eyes be a mirror.

“I can’t tell you how bad it was. I can’t. There aren’t fucking words for it, and all the ones I could use… they’re nothing. I knew Hell before I went there. They used his face to torture me and I felt nostalgic. Fuck, I can’t say this, I can’t say it, Sammy always wants me to open up to him but he’s my kid, he’s my kid, you know I call him Sammy ‘cuz I wanna call him kid, ‘cuz I wanna call him son? How fucked up is that?”

He snorts and bites his cheeks so hard it draws blood. “Not like fuck-ups like me can have kids. Or be around ‘em.”

“Dean—”

“It’s genetics and all that. Dad didn’t want me alone around Sammy when he figured it out. Started takin’ me on hunts and leaving Sammy alone when he was nine. He was still a kid. But Dad… Dad didn’t want me fuckin’ near him.”

He chokes a little, wishes he had something to wash down the blood, wash down his confession. He never got how Sam could do this stuff with a stranger in a box.

“I don’t know. I thought Bobby did alright with us.”

“Bobby did great with you,” she tells him, and that’s all he needs to keep going.

“Bobby did better than great. Bobby was Bobby… he just… you know he’s the reason I’m vaccinated? How fuckin’ funny is that? Dad didn’t have time to take us to the doctor. I could have pneumo… pneumic… pneumomnia and he would have tossed me some tylenol and told me to stop being a sissy. A sissy. Fuck, that was his favorite goddamn word for me. Guess I liked baking with Mom a little too much. And I know I reminded him of her too much. I was Sammy’s mom and dad’s wife and fuck all else. A sissy.”

He looked at her, desperate, wild. Like it was Purgatory and he wasn’t sure he’d wake up the next morning.

“I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

Charlie bites her lip, hesitating, before bluntly saying, “Well, I think you know why you came to me about it.”

Dean nods. Grips her bedpost from the vertigo. And spits out, “I wanna fuck Cas. And even goddamn worse, I want to make him dinner.”

And then he throws up.

* * *

Over the toilet, she holds his hair back, even though there’s nothing to hold. She’s just scared that if she lets him go he’ll drown in his own sick and fear.

He laughs between rounds of vomit and says, “He always said he wasn’t gonna raise a fairy, and then he did anyway. He’s stuck in Hell hating me for the rest of his goddamn time.”

His eyes roll back and his head lolls. “If I keep doing this, I’ll end up right next to him.”

* * *

She is not the praying type. She used to be, but the car accident broke both her arms and took her faith with them. But she reasons this isn’t as much a prayer as it is a phone call.

“Castiel,” she tries, like the service in Heaven is bad. His name makes her tongue burn a little, but she doesn’t think she can call him “Cas” before she’s even met him. “Dean says this is kinda like… like angel radio? Like you can hear me. I’m sure you’re busy doing… um… well, I’m sure you’re busy. But I really need to talk to you. It’s about Dean.”

There’s a breeze in her room and all of her lights flare for a moment, bright enough to make her wince.

“Apologies,” a voice that must have smoked four packs a day says behind her. “If I don’t focus, my celestial energy tends to upset lightbulbs. And radios.”

She turns around and sees a man who is a man. Which is fair, and probably what she should have expected. But there’s no halo and there’s no wings and there’s no “don’t panic” or whatever it is they said in the Bible.

She wonders if the other angels are so human.

“You wanted to speak about Dean?”

“Um,” she tries, her voice scratchy and rough even though she’s barely used it. “Sort of. It’s actually none of my business, I don’t even know…”

Castiel tilts his head to the side. “I have heard kind things said about your intelligence, Charlie. Is it not an articulate kind? I am able to communicate in a variety of ways.”

“No, I can talk fine,” she assures him, and continues quickly, “You know you mean the world to him, right? Dean.”

Charlie has a sort of knack for people’s smiles. They read a little like code. If watched long enough, there are patterns. Castiel’s smile is new and terrifying and kind of makes her want to wipe at her eyes in case they’re gushing blood.

“He prays, Charlie,” he says. His voice _hurts._ “Without realizing it, he does it all the time. I know what is happening inside of his soul. I put his body back together and I barely even see it because the light of his soul is… it’s screaming. The light inside of him screams. It… it reaches for my true form. He’s just not ready.”

“You... know? And you’re just… waiting?”

He shakes his head. “Waiting implies a certain amount of expectation, I think. I’m not expectant. I’m content.”

“Dean’s not. He’s fucking miserable,” she says before she can stop herself. Her best friend is in the room across the hall, passed out and head tilted so he won’t choke on his own vomit, and here’s the man he wants, standing in front of her and telling her he knows. And he doesn’t even have the decency to confess it. He just says it.

“Dean was, as you say, ‘fucking miserable,’ long before I met him.” Castiel’s eyes begin to glow, and she wonders if he can cry. “His father… the fire… his childhood… I cannot calm him. There is no special, angelic ability to remove rage. Not when he is so insistent on hiding it. Me… caring for him will do nothing if he doesn’t allow me to.”

* * *

In the morning, Dean says, “Sorry for last night,” in a voice so full of shame she has to turn away from him for a moment. And when she looks back and tells him it’s okay, tells him she loves him, she sees it. The fucking misery in his eyes.

He makes waffles for breakfast, proper waffles with homemade batter and everything.


End file.
